The Met will be undertaking two procurement exercises, according to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, the first of which will be for hosting facilities and the procurement of hardware and related software.

"Such a solution would provide a computerised service for handling incoming calls (emergency, non-emergency and internal), dealing with incidents, supporting the operational handling of events, assigning and deploying resources and providing data interactions with mobile devices," says the notice.

The procurement exercise could also extend to other associated technologies, such as voice and CCTV communications; mobile in-car devices; mobile telemetry; and call routing from the public network and the internal network. However, their inclusion would depend on the suitability of the technology choices, the deployment options and the contract terms, the notice says.

The second procurement exercise will cover systems integration of the chosen software with the operating environment, the transition from the existing command-and-control solution and the ongoing operation and technical support of the overall software.

According to the notice, it may also cover the provision of additional functionality not provided through the first procurement exercise, including taking on the responsibility for the operation of the existing command-and-control solution through any period of the transition to a new solution, as well as taking on responsibility for managing other related third-party suppliers.

The Met has the option to extend the contract twice, for periods of four years each time.

Guardian Government Computing is a business division of Guardian Professional, and covers the latest news and analysis of public sector technology. For updates on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here.